


Better, Tea-chan?

by hayatefan



Category: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha | Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Genre: Background Hayate/Suzuka, Background Hayate/many, F/F, Minor Shamal, Minor Signum, Minor Vita, Multi, Polyamorous Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24534799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayatefan/pseuds/hayatefan
Summary: Italics with quotation marks indicate telepathic communication.  Italics without quotes would be private thoughts.I write a very poly Hayate so I marked "Multi" though I don't know yet if it will come up much in this fic.
Relationships: Yagami Hayate/Teana Lanster
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Italics with quotation marks indicate telepathic communication. Italics without quotes would be private thoughts.
> 
> I write a very poly Hayate so I marked "Multi" though I don't know yet if it will come up much in this fic.

MY 0076

We were watching a movie in Hayate's living room. Or rather, she and the other six Yagamis were watching, and I was uncomfortable.

_"Um, Hayate? Do you have to hold me like this, here?"_

_"What's wrong?"_

_"It's rather... intimate, don't you think?"_

_"We're in private."_

_"...maybe for you. Not so much for me."_

My new girlfriend? maybe? unwrapped her skirted legs from around my waist, and arms from about my chest. Shuffling around a bit, she instead leaned into my side, even facing away a bit. It felt natural to put my right arm around her waist.

_"Better, Tea-chan?"_

_"Yes, thank you. I'm sorry to be a bother."_

_"Mmmm, it's okay."_

I felt a movement and looked at her; her legs had stretched down the couch, her feet resting against Vita's feet. In the past day I'd rapidly learned that the young Lieutenant Colonel, Mistress of the Tome of the Night Sky, Living Lost Logia, etc., was surprisingly clingy. As head of Riot Force 6, she'd seemed extremely poised and confident. Shorter than her friends and elder subordinates, kindly, but in command of us and herself and her fearsome power. I'd heard rumors that she was... grabby... but hadn't observed anything improper myself, until right _after_ our unit was disbanded. Subaru, not too surprisingly, had cheerfully groped her back; I'd just been shocked, which had led to apologies. Supposedly she only groped her friends, but had an expansive sence of who qualified.

But at home? A Hayate at rest was apparently a Hayate touching another person. Whether embarrassingly intimate, chastely cuddling, or simply maintaining light physical contact, she almost always ended up touching someone. Me, or her knights, or petting one of the Unison Devices. I had to assume this was normal for her, and that I'd simply been added to the petting zoo. Or harem? I wasn't clear yet on what the usual sleeping arrangements here were, just that I hadn't heard of anyone else in my position. Which seemed odd, given the supposed grabbiness.

Oh, the movie? It was a Midchildan children's movie (say that ten times fast) about a penguin who was a spy and assassin. "Penguin ninja!" Hayate said repeatedly and gleefully. Yes, other worlds have penguins; yes, we find them funny. I'd seen it when I was twelve. The Yagamis were engaged in remedial Midchildan cultural education. And needed remedial Watching Children's Movies, in my opinion: the knights other than Shamal kept criticizing the realism of the penguin's ninja deeds. That it was a penguin didn't seem to bother them.

They also needed remedial Watching Movies With Others Politely. _"Could you lot share your comments with each other mentally, and leave me out of it? I'm trying to watch,"_ I said telepathically, to the room.

_"Bold words, young private."_ thought Vita. In my annoyance I'd forgotten that almost everyone present was my superior officer, not to mention my elder and superior in every way. Apart from my being older than Rein. And maybe Agito? I was unclear on that. And given time I spent learning to talk and walk, I didn't have a solid claim on being older than Sergeant Rein, either.

Fortunately, despite my freezing up again, they did shut up or take it mental.


	2. Chapter 2

Once again, the penguin with the help of his friends had managed to defeat the polar bear mafia, and all was well in the Republic of Auroras. The audience seemed happy. Until:

"I didn't want to say anything during the movie," Hayate said, ignoring the many exclamations she had in fact made, "and I know, kids' movie, but really? Polar bears and penguins? I just can't get over that!"

I looked at her. Everyone else looked at her. Except Rein. "What's wrong with that?" said Vita.

"They don't live together! North pole, south pole! They're a world apart." We kept looking at her, the others seeming as confused as I felt. "That's where they evolved! Movies on Earth do it too and it annoys me! Just because they live on ice and at a pole doesn't mean you can just stick them together!"

We still didn't get it. Rein piped up. "Meister Hayate is upset because the movie about a talking penguin ninja is not ecologically accurate."

Hayate glared at her. "Traitor!"

"But I've been to the Cranagan zoo", Shamal said, looking worried. "It said they do live together. Penguins are a big part of the bear diet."

I could hear and feel Hayate taking a deep breath, like the prelude to an explosion. Rein cut in quickly. "Hayate, remember that dimensional worlds haven't been ecologically friendly. Species have been moved around and introduced a lot, because someone felt like it, or other reasons. For centuries, across many worlds, polar bears and penguins have lived together. It's not inaccurate for them."

Hayate deflated. "Discover a hundred parallel worlds, and fuck them all up."

I was a bit disappointed. It would have been interesting to see Hayate passionately explode about something, especially something that didn't matter. (If the whole Saint's Cradle crisis hadn't caused her to lose her cool, I didn't want to live through what _would_.)

"Hey now, that's not fair" said Vita. "The air here is way cleaner than in Japan. You've said that yourself."

"That's Mid-childa. How about Belka? ... Eh, whatever, I'm sorry to be a downer. You all enjoyed the movie, I shouldn't try to take that away from you."

"You seemed to enjoy it too," I said.

"I did, I did. It's just... poles!"

"What I noticed," said Signum, "is that all the childrens' movies we watch feature republics or commonwealths, opposed by evil kingdoms. The entertainment on Earth was different, where you have many movies with magic princesses and princes as the heroes."

"Ah," said Hayate, "I think that's the local propaganda and censorship for kids. Like in Japan you wouldn't see something for kids with sex or smoking or too much violence, here you don't see something that puts kings in a nice light. Unless they're sacrificing themselves and ending their kingdom, like the Saint-Kaiser."

"Wait," I said. "I thought your country was a democracy?"

"It is. Well, mostly, we have this vestigial emperor, but we don't even pretend he has power. But a lot of our popular stories still feature royalty, especially in fantasy. There's a world-spanning corporation devoted to selling princess fantasies to little girls."

"That's obscene!"

Hayate laughed. "It doesn't matter that much. Of all the threats to democracies on Earth, Disney princesses aren't even on the list."

"Maybe because women don't have power anyway," said Shamal primly.

Silence filled the room.

"Right, that's enough of that. Note to self, childrens' movies are depressing, never watch them again." Overriding spluttering objections from several others, she added "I'm going to bed." _"Tea, are you with me."_

_"Uh, sure."_ She turned to look at me, eyebrows raised. _"I mean, yes."_

"Okay, Tea's with me again, the rest of you sort yourself out." She took my hand and led me upstairs to her room.


	3. Chapter 3

Up in her bedroom, Hayate closed the door and turned to me, sliding her arms around my waist and kissing me. We made out for a minute or so, her hands running over me while I embraced her neck, but then I pulled back.

"Sorry, but can we talk a bit first?"

She put her hands on my hands on her shoulders. "Sure, Teana-chan. What is it?"

"We, ah, agreed to something last night, but I'm not sure what, we got caught up in the kissing and the cuddling-"

"-and the grinding, don't forget the grinding!"

"er, yes, and it was fun, but what are we?"

"Do you need an answer to that?"

"I think so. I feel lost."

"And that makes you anxious and uptight rather than being delightful uncertainty?"

"Yeah."

She led me to the bed. "Sit," and we sat on the edge together, Hayate holding my hand. She looked at me, pursing her lips. "Right. Well, since Verossa pointed you at me in his meddlesome way, I've found you make a nice friend, and I like you, you're single, and I thought you liked me. So I made a move, once you weren't my subordinate. I wasn't planning on it being a one-night stand, obviously, here we are again! And I would treat you well and care for you. But I'm not going to pretend you're the most important person in my life, or even the most important human -- though that could happen. And I'm not passionately in love with you at the moment. I like you and I'd like to do things with you, but I expect you would move on at some point, especially when you found someone to truly pair with. Like Subaru-chan, eh?" She squeezed my hand and gave me a wink.

"Ehhh? There's nothing there! Why does everyone act like there is?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it again with a shake of her head. "Eh, some other time. Anyway, that's where I stand. It could be fun, it could be more, it's definitely not going to be a one true love. If you think that can work, great! If not, no big- well, no harm done, I won't be hurt."

I sat thinking about that for a while, if a churn of inchoate emotions can be called thinking. "Who is the most important human? And what do you mean by that?"

"A real, biological, human, not one of the knights or devices dependent on me. It's more about their independence than the biology per se, someone who likes me for me, not as a kind master, or as their creator. And she's an old schoolmate on Earth. We had an intense couple of years there, and have been sort of long distance since. But Earth and Midchilda are nearly as far away as any inhabited worlds, and she's not leaving, so I figure -- I hope, for her sake -- that she'll find a nice girl on Earth." Hayate sighed. "She's upper class Japanese though, so it might take a while, the culture has... _issues_."

"No harm done, eh?"

"No, I expect I'll cry and grieve somewhat, and drown my sorrows in debauched group sex." She said that very matter-of-factly. I looked askance at her, and she shrugged. "What? I know myself."

"And she's more important to you than Fate or Nanoha?"

Hayate paused before replying. "Well, she was. Suzuka was my first friend, too, outside of my knights, from age nine. And I feel more passionately about her. But, I suppose, someone I'll never see again more than once or twice a year is practically less important than friends across the city." She looked thoughtful and a bit sad. Then she shook herself. "But, yeah. So if you and I are together, you'll be sharing me with her, occasionally. And with some of my knights, a lot more frequently. You don't have to be part of group sex -- though that's a lot of fun! -- but I'm not going to be exclusively yours, even temporarily. And I don't expect you to be mine. I suppose I should have been clearer about this last night... are you okay with this?"

Was I? It's not something I had thought about or prepared myself for. My first relationship being part of, even if on the edge, some giant poly cluster, hadn't been part of what girlish fantasies I would admit to. On the other hand, I did like Hayate, and it's not like I had anything better going. Unless I wanted to see if everyone was right about me and Subaru, or humiliate myself throwing myself at Vice, who I was pretty sure didn't see me that way.

I took a deep breath, and looked her in the eyes. "I'm not sure. But I am okay with finding out."


End file.
